Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: Pan on July 19, 2011, 05:19:41 pm
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So I just read that lashers are actually as powerful as Jedi with lightsabers. Perfect. Any other crappy features certain weapons have that I should know about?
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Actually, lashes are only good against relatively small targets susceptible to pain. Against a large beast I don't think they are quite as effective.
Anyway, if you think that's a crappy feature then I hope you haven't met a forgotten beast yet that can't be fought through conventional means, since it's foe would instantly rot to death by getting near it.
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Warhammers or maces made from cotton-candy are about as dangerous as a feather duster right now.
I'm pretty sure that in order for lashers to be stupid dangerous they need to use Scourges since they're basically super small, super fast warhammers.
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Actually, lashes are only good against relatively small targets susceptible to pain.
Which notably includes Dwarves.
But to answer the OP's question.. there are a lot of oddities, like knives puncturing armor better than spears, silver making better blunt weapons than steel, mining picks supposedly beating axes/swords/any other conventional melee weapon, and so on. These are small differences though, trivial compared to weapon/armor material, craftsdwarfship, or training. Whips/scourges are the only horribly broken weapons, because they have a small contact area (correct), move very very fast (correct), and put the full size of the entire weapon into the blow (wrong!!). Nerfing the weapon size by a factor of 100 or so is an easy fix in the raws, if you get tired of watching no quality copper whips go through masterwork steel like butter and shatter bones.
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Warhammers or maces made from cotton-candy are about as dangerous as a feather duster right now.
That's not a bug.
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Yeah the blue metal was deliberately made extremely light, it's meant to be similar to Tolkien's mithril. It's intended that this makes it terrible for blunt weapons - more of a quirk than a bug.
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the reason silver makes better warhammers is because it's heavier, which is what matters, so it's also not a bug.
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Silver warhammers will make sense when we get weapon and armor damage. A silver hammer would get in a few good hits, then be warped and twisted into being useless. Then it would need to be re-smelted into a shiny new silver mace. A steel mace, while not as strong, would survive endless battles. Silver is not a strong material, it makes terrible weapons because any force exerted on it will destroy it. But right now weapons only exert force, they do not receive recoil.
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Quite.
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I'm aware of why cotton candy blunt weapons are so terrible but it seems a bit nonsensical.
Imagine being able to swing something that is extremely hard essentially as fast as your arm can move. Remember that kinetic energy is m(v^2) so you gain more force from an increase of velocity as opposed to an equal increase in mass.
I spose you could argue that cotton candy is SO light that you're wasting kinetic energy because the dwarf doesn't need it that light in order to swing at max speed. Fine, throw a small core of lead in a blunt weapon.
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For a point of comparison, adamantine is about as light as cork.
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Coring a weapon doesn't happen (yet) and you seem to fail to grasp the concept of fast and light. Compare a hollow alluminum baseball bat with a steel rebarb. Now imagine that the bat is so light it floats in water without air pockets. Candy is so light it should float, if DF respected this. That gives it a weight comparable to balsa wood.
Adamantine has a density of .2g/cm3, while the lightest wood, which in raw terms is 200 solid density. Featherwood has a density of 100, at the lightest material available, and Cedar at 380 is the second lightest. According to google, balsa wood has a density of 1.6g/cm3.
For those unfamiliar, balsa wood is a common novice woodcrafter's wood, because it's so amazingly light and easily cut that you can break solid blocks with your bare hands, and it makes for easy carving. It feels like styrofoam. Which, according to google, heavy styrofoam weighs .2g/cm3. This mean that adamantine would hit you as if it were aluminum-covered packing peanuts, if not weaker.
I really cannot stress enough how unbelievably light adamantine is.
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My point is that the game treats silver as a good hammer material just because it's heavy, disregarding silver's malleability which makes it unsuitable for weapons. Silver makes a poor weapon material in real life, but the game thinks it's great, I'd consider that a bug.
Consider on the other hand a hypothetical material harder than steel with the weight of balsa wood, i.e. Adamantine - if we could make such a material in real life, it actually would make for a great knife but a terrible hammer. In this case the game is doing a decent job of modelling how such a hypothetical material should behave in real life; I don't see that as a bug, not in the same way that ignoring some properties of silver makes it into a great weapon material.
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Again, I repeat, "weapons incur no damage". Until you start seeing XXSilver MaceXX then it's density all the way. Once weapons DO start to degrade, then you'll see obsidian swords and silver hammers with short life but good use. Your a rich man's weapon, you'll see silver maces used for 1-2 battles and then discarded, while steel maces will outlive your soldiers. At this point, dwarves who like maces will become invaluable, as they'll make the rare platinum maces that don't get damaged because they're artifacts.
Until then, silver (platinum if you can mood it) makes the best blunt weapon.
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In my experience, scourges have actually not been that effective on armored targets due to the poor edge penetration.
Still good on fleshies though.
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Until then, silver (platinum if you can mood it) makes the best blunt weapon.
Don't you mean 'Mod'?
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No. Strange mood, Can make artifact weapons of non-normal materials.
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Ok, I didn't realize just how stupendously light candy was.
Lets do some calculations here:
Conditions:
- A dwarf swings the head of a hammer at 22.222 m/s (or 80 Kph) relative to the surface of his target, which I feel is probably a decent estimate.
- I'll use the size of the weapon and the density of the material used to determine mass
Ok, using those assumptions:
A Silver Warhammer has a mass of 4.196 Kg's
A Candy Warhammer has a mass of .08 Kg's
Oh lord, I see where this is going already.
Ok, these weapons will hit their target with this much kinetic energy:
Silver Warhammer: 1036.05 joules
Candy Warhammer: 19.75 joules
Which gives a staggering result that a silver warhammer hits ~52.5 times as hard as a candy one. For a little comparison, the round an AK-47 uses has a typical muzzle energy of about 2050 joules.
Course this is all relative to how fast the weapons are considered to be going within the game or however Toady ends up calculating all that good stuff.
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That's the point we were trying to make dude :P Candy is useless for blunt weapons.
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It's a point you didn't need to make, I understood that fact already.
It was more so arguing that it seems a little backwards or odd that the "best" material in the game makes the absolute worst blunt weapons.
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It's a point you didn't need to make, I understood that fact already.
It was more so arguing that it seems a little backwards or odd that the "best" material in the game makes the absolute worst blunt weapons.
so what your trying to get across is that you think that the best edged material should also be the best blunt material?
i feel that having different materials better at different things is a superior mechanic then having and all powerful 'i win' button for every weapon mechanic. imho.
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I don't think many people realize just how insignificantly light candy is, is the problem. It's on par with featherwood. A cube 11 feet wide on each side (11ft3) would weigh as much as a five pound bag of sugar, if my maths are correct.
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Candy can also be sharpened down to the quark, so rather than normal anti-armor fighting (cutting the joints and thin spots) they just slash through the torso and watch the goblin/demon/arena breed yeti/giant badger/troll/giant giant tortoise/glitching kitten fall in half.
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For collisions I'd imagine the momentum matters more than the kinetic energy, since impulse depends on momentum and I'd think non-penetrating damage (bone-breakage, organ-bruising) comes from impulse. Kinetic energy can just be dissipated as heat.
Supposing a non-elastic collision between a 4kg silver hammerhead moving at 20 m/s and a breastplate of some kind:
We can imagine that the total "give" of the breastplate is on the order of 5 cm, giving us an average acceleration of 400/0.1 = 4000 m/s^2. multiplying by the mass of the hammerhead we get around 16kN average force. Since force is roughly bell-shaped as a function of time for such an impact, it is not unreasonable to surmise that peak impact-transmitted force is on the order of 30kN. More rigid breastplates would actually serve to increase peak force ("giving" less in terms of momentum and dissipating less energy in deformation in terms of energy).
Applying such force orthogonally against a rib bone of radial area, say, 2cm^2, we get a shear stress of 30kN/0.0002m^2 or around 150 MPa.
Doing a little Googling around I find the ultimate orthogonal shear strength of human bone (the breaking point) to be on the order of 100MPa. Of course this all gets far more complicated with impact angle, intervening tissues, the stopping distance assumption, etc, which would all serve to attenuate the impulse. but we see that a silver hammerhead is just at the right weight to deliver bone breakage. Anything less than half as dense should have trouble snapping bones, and anything less than one quarter as dense should be all but useless against bones except in ridiculously lucky/ideal circumstances.
Edit: I conveniently ignored impact area of the hammerhead, which if large would of course distribute the force across multiple bones/organs. However, the above still seems valid with a reasonably compact (say, 6cm * 6cm, from the weight/density/imagined hammer shape) impact area.
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It was more so arguing that it seems a little backwards or odd that the "best" material in the game makes the absolute worst blunt weapons.
The reason it's the best material is because its one weakness doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that it couldn't crack an egg open when you can make it into a weapon that renders armour irrelevant.
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mining picks supposedly beating axes/swords/any other conventional melee weapon
This is less a bug and more a consequence of the fact that using a pick as a weapon uses the mining skill, and mining is far, far easier to train (indeed, pretty much trivial) than any sort of melee weapon skill. The weapon itself isn't actually as good in terms of combat effectiveness, it's the skill of the wielder. Take, for example, an axedwarf and a miner; theoretically, the axedwarf should be the superior combatant. However, you're far more likely to have a superlegendary miner than a superlegendary axe lord. A legendary +5 axe lord will probably beat a legendary +5 miner, and also outperform them in combat. However, miners make a very good stopgap in case of a sudden need for a military force. There's also the fact that miners probably have trained their strength attribute rather high, once again from mining.
Realistically, of course, I expect swinging a pick to chip away at rock requires rather different types of coordination than swinging a pick at a goblin's head.
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Same as how woodcutters, no matter how good they are, aren't good at being an axedwarf unless having the axedwarf skill. A tree is just different from a goblin.
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Fun facts about Adamantine based only on the contents of the raw files:
- It melts at 8333 C (15032 F), so you'd need to throw it into the sun in order to melt it.
- If it did melt, its density would increase 13x from 0.2 g/cm3 to 2.6 g/cm3. Most normal substances decrease in density slightly when they melt. This means that a melting adamantine bar would shrink.
- Adamantine is only ~10x stronger than steel, more or less, but it is perfectly rigid. How adamantine thread works is beyond me.
- Adamantine can be made ~10x sharper than most metals, according to the max edge.
- Adamantine has a specific heat 2x higher than water, and 15-20x higher than most other metals.
Strange consequences of these facts:
- The speed of sound in air is 343 m/s (1126 ft/s), in water is 1484 m/s, and in iron is 5120 m/s. According to my calculations, the speed of sound in adamantine is at least 63200 m/s, due to the high stiffness and low density. If adamantine is perfectly rigid, as shown by having 0 strain at fracture in the raw files, then the speed of sound in the metal approaches the speed of light. Adamantine musical instruments would produce ultrasonic vibrations, and cut off the fingers of the musician.
- Adamatine would make for excellent crowbars/prybars, because you could use a 20 foot long pole to pry open a heavy stone door and it wouldn't bend the tool.
- When adamantine does break, it would suddenly shatter like glass without warning, because it is so rigid and because it stores so much internal energy. The resulting shrapnel would be nasty, good thing it is next to impossible to break...
- Even a perfectly sharp blade needs a bit of force to cut, as you have to force the flesh/stone/metal/etc. to part so the blade can move forwards. Since adamantine has low weight, there would be little momentum in the sword swing and all of the force would come from the user.
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Neat. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=53571.0)
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All I really care about is which weapon is better for sending enemies flying, warhammers, or maces?
Armor doesn't really matter for blunt weapons either when goblins can take a one way flight into the wall.
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They aren't bugged. They are simulated somewhat crudely:
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Weapons consist of only one material, so the calculations assume solid metal spears and whips.
Weapons are assumed to be rigid, for whips, this means we have ~1kg of metal impacting at supersonic speeds instead of a bullet-like tip.
Weapons aren't simply turned away, they hit perfectly straight and either penetrate or not. Needles would poke through armour like butter.
Weapons of the same weight all handle the same. A weapon balanced towards the tip may benefit from a higher velocity multiplier, but it won't be harder to handle (chance to parry, recovery speed).
Weapons don't receive damage.
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And adamantine is indeed quite nonsensical, which I ranted about often enough.
It has the density of balsa wood when solid, the density of normal stone when liquid. Solidifying adamantine would gain 12 times its current volume.
If I understand the properties right, a max_edge exceeding obsidian shouldn't be possible with its molar mass and density (obsidan fractures to edges a couple of molecules wide).
Urist Da Vinci already pointed out the problems with its perfect rigidity.
I always felt it was an unsightly blemish on the otherwise very cool materials system, created by 'let's pull extreme values out of nowhere' rather than 'let's think what we expect our god metal to be like, then simulate that'.
To which the reaction by most players seems to be 'shut up, we don't want it to be just slightly better steel'... which in my opinion misses the point.
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Not getting into the details of weapon usefulness, as I've written far too much about that already. Perhaps I should sum it up some time and link to it/put it in my sig.
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Maybe adamantine has an extremely open crystal structure when solid, like water (only more so). Perhaps the crystal structure creates a microscopic, nigh atomic-scale structure of serrations when sharpened to an edge, letting it slice through steel like butter.
Maybe it's infused with some sort of vibrational energy that makes it oscillate at a very high frequency, letting it slice through steel like butter.
Or maybe it's nonsensical because it is quite literally the god-metal that holds the demonic hordes at bay and is jacked up with more magic than you can shake a stick at.
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What we really need is a silver warhammer with an adamantine shell.
Awesome post.
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All I really care about is which weapon is better for sending enemies flying, warhammers, or maces?
Armor doesn't really matter for blunt weapons either when goblins can take a one way flight into the wall.
mauls.
they work even better if you make them larger.
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I find it amusing to imagine a thread of addy that is uncomprehensibly straight and has a point incredibly sharp. Those poor kids getting sewed up with adamantine thread =/
The inner chemist in me is rather interested in the density increase as well. What exactly is Adamantine classified as in game? Some sort of alloy that was forged when the Earth was made? Or is it a new element?
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DF Wiki has a lore bit that adamantine is a holy substance that was used by the gods to seal the demons in hell, explaining the Hidden Fun Stuff.
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Fun facts about Adamantine based only on the contents of the raw files:
- It melts at 8333 C (15032 F), so you'd need to throw it into the sun in order to melt it.
- If it did melt, its density would increase 13x from 0.2 g/cm3 to 2.6 g/cm3. Most normal substances decrease in density slightly when they melt. This means that a melting adamantine bar would shrink.
- Adamantine can be made ~10x sharper than most metals, according to the max edge.
- Adamantine has a specific heat 2x higher than water, and 15-20x higher than most other metals.
Strange consequences of these facts:
- The speed of sound in air is 343 m/s (1126 ft/s), in water is 1484 m/s, and in iron is 5120 m/s. According to my calculations, the speed of sound in adamantine is at least 63200 m/s, due to the high stiffness and low density. If adamantine is perfectly rigid, as shown by having 0 strain at fracture in the raw files, then the speed of sound in the metal approaches the speed of light. Adamantine musical instruments would produce ultrasonic vibrations, and cut off the fingers of the musician.
- Even a perfectly sharp blade needs a bit of force to cut, as you have to force the flesh/stone/metal/etc. to part so the blade can move forwards. Since adamantine has low weight, there would be little momentum in the sword swing and all of the force would come from the user.
Ironically you couldn't melt it on the sun(5500C), but doable with some lab furnaces.
Most normal materials increase density freezing, that's part of why water is weird. I assume you mean unbound metals and alloys.
Literally sharpened to the neutron.
c=300,000km/s so it's just going fast. Flesh cushions the vibrations and there is no sharpened edge to use.
The force required is actually you forcing the target's body into a flat split off i.e. the edge. Candy is in fact so sharp that leaving it on the ground would result in the blade's own miniscule weight forcing it into the ground until it hit the hilt.
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DF Wiki has a lore bit that adamantine is a holy substance that was used by the gods to seal the demons in hell, explaining the Hidden Fun Stuff.
So a wizard did it then...
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i dont think armok would like being called a skinny, pathetic, rely-on-magic-to-defend-oneself, pussy.
though, me, i like wizards. -nerdface-
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There's different kinds of wizards in the world. Some are doddly old mages with pointy hats and wands. Others are strong-shouldered warlocks with a staff of iron and the will to throw mountains. It's also ultimately a reference to a lame cop-out, perhaps founded in DnD. "A wizard did it" is the lame excuse for anything that doesn't make sense. "Why is there a giant pillar of rock suspended above my character? What architect would design that into their dining hall?" "A wizard did it."
Either way, I actually very much enjoy the theory of the world's creation, as listed in the bottom of the adamantine article (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Adamantine#Origins_of_Adamantine_and_Slade). It lists a very different world creation myth, in which the "demons" created the world, and the "gods" perverted it. It states that demons created a small ball of slade in the sky, and kept it warm with their own heat, and that the gods (or Armok alone) encased that in semi-molten rock to trap the demons and build their own world atop that. That means that HFS is the good guy, and all of creation is the invader. I believe this rather eloquently describes DF - life as we know it is a sin against nature.
Also, wtb adamantine voice tubes. A solid rod of candy that wires through the fort, allowing anyone to speak and be heard. Dwarven PA system, anyone?
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Also, wtb adamantine voice tubes. A solid rod of candy that wires through the fort, allowing anyone to speak and be heard. Dwarven PA system, anyone?
Imagine the din around raw addy columns...
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You should be able to hear the HFS, clear as a bell, along with the slow hum of magma washing against the spire...
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To further connect it to D&D I imagine it must be like pandemonium, even out of the winds there the howling never ceases, only becomes more quiet. you'd not be able to sleep anywhere near them
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You should be able to hear the HFS, clear as a bell, along with the slow hum of magma washing against the spire...
^Love this
This thread is why I love df. Dammit I love it so much.
We have a bunch of building blocks, and we jam square pegs into circle holes and then examine and deconstruct why the pegs are square and why the holes are circular.
It's awesome!
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Also, wtb adamantine voice tubes. A solid rod of candy that wires through the fort, allowing anyone to speak and be heard. Dwarven PA system, anyone?
Imagine the din around raw addy columns...
The raw ore appears to be regular layer rock that is full of adamantine strands that have to be carefully extracted and linked together. Dwarves have some secret technique regarding adamantine, and I'm guessing that the strands/thread are actually very fine (hair-size) chains. This would allow some fabrication, as you could link the micro-chains end-to-end to make a longer piece of thread. With some other secret technique, you could smelt a layered chain cloth into other objects. Adamantine clothing would be super-fine chain mail. This would also explain why it takes so long to make a ball of addy thread from the ore. "Chains" also fit the flavour of something intended to seal in HFS.
Because the ore is strands-in-rock, some of the sound would be dampened out, so you may just hear creepy noises rather than HFS-speech on the other side...
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HFS doesn't speak. It screams in the dark abyss.
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Don't some of them intone the names of those they meet?
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that's FB.
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No it can be demon too. I think they can share most of the FB traits, as I once met a demon that chanted ceaselessly, so they can probably have other similar flavor traits.
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If adamantine is perfectly rigid, as shown by having 0 strain at fracture in the raw files, then the speed of sound in the metal approaches the speed of light. Adamantine musical instruments would produce ultrasonic vibrations, and cut off the fingers of the musician.
Sigged, if only this worked i could make some adamantine flutes for the nobles
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All adamantine guitars are played with adamantine picks.
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All adamantine guitars are played with adamantine picks.
Too bad that adamantine is not heavy metal.
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All adamantine guitars are played with adamantine picks.
Too bad that adamantine is not heavy metal.
Is there such a thing as Feather-Light Metal?
I can see it as being a bunch of soft spoken dwarves standing around playing mandolins and such things while somebody gently says metal lyrics.
Also, how long would it take a dwarf to smash a guitar made out of Adamantine?
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- If it did melt, its density would increase 13x from 0.2 g/cm3 to 2.6 g/cm3. Most normal substances decrease in density slightly when they melt. This means that a melting adamantine bar would shrink.
- Adamantine is only ~10x stronger than steel, more or less, but it is perfectly rigid. How adamantine thread works is beyond me.
Perhaps these two are related, when Addy thread is heated in clumps, it becomes more rigid and thus can be forged into weapons.
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Also, how long would it take a dwarf to smash a guitar made out of Adamantine?
It would take about the same time as a normal tantrum takes to settle down. Amirite?
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Also, how long would it take a dwarf to smash a guitar made out of Adamantine?
It would take about the same time as a normal tantrum takes to settle down. Amirite?
So...until they kill someone?
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So...until they kill someone?
She meant until they kill everyone.
edit: pardon
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"she" meant that the dwarf will swing the guitar during a tantrum, and then calm down.
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All adamantine guitars are played with adamantine picks.
Too bad that adamantine is not heavy metal.
*crickets*
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You want to know why adamantine has almost impossible characteristics? It's MAGIC. Also probably a defect-free covalently-bonded metal with an unusually negative nucleus and a large amount of the strong nuclear force, along with a polar electron distribution similar to that of water.
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"Magic" is "a wizard did it" in hand-waving terms. In fact...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt
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It.
Was.
A.
JOKE.
Which is why I thereafter included the dense scientific jargon. That, and I like showing off my sesquipedalian loquaciousness.
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mining picks supposedly beating axes/swords/any other conventional melee weapon
This is less a bug and more a consequence of the fact that using a pick as a weapon uses the mining skill, and mining is far, far easier to train (indeed, pretty much trivial) than any sort of melee weapon skill. The weapon itself isn't actually as good in terms of combat effectiveness, it's the skill of the wielder. Take, for example, an axedwarf and a miner; theoretically, the axedwarf should be the superior combatant. However, you're far more likely to have a superlegendary miner than a superlegendary axe lord. A legendary +5 axe lord will probably beat a legendary +5 miner, and also outperform them in combat. However, miners make a very good stopgap in case of a sudden need for a military force. There's also the fact that miners probably have trained their strength attribute rather high, once again from mining.
Realistically, of course, I expect swinging a pick to chip away at rock requires rather different types of coordination than swinging a pick at a goblin's head.
While all that is true, i.e. picks have an advantage over other melee weapons because they rely on the common and easily trained mining skill, it's not actually what I meant. The problem is that arena tests have shown* equally skilled pickdwarves actually beating axedwarves, swordsdwarves, etc; it seems that the pick is a superior weapon against an armored target, even before you consider the skill advantage.
*That is, other people's limited testing has shown this. I don't mean to pass it on as absolute fact without confirming it myself, with a more statistically significant number of trials, hence "supposedly."
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A pickaxe in game is a war hammer in real life. The Luminous Leader Toad has just not put in the unwieldiness of using a pickaxe like a war hammer.
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This will likely be added with the change to combat and movement speed. Picks will get a very low combat speed modifier, while axes get a relatively quick one. Even though the pick may be better, it will be slower/cumbersome. Until then, enjoy your miner army.
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well this lame combat system goes on the assumtion that weight only effects slashing attacks when they are blunt
and the pick was a legitamate medieval weapon, in fact it is many time better at piercing plate mail than that of spears
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A "battle pick" is much different from a "mining pick" though. While both can be used for either purpose, they do so rather poorly.
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That's the point we were trying to make dude :P Candy is useless for blunt weapons.
It's about as dense as Styrofoam. Let that sink in.
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... it seems that the pick is a superior weapon against an armored target, even before you consider the skill advantage.
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The words "can opener" come to mind.
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That's the point we were trying to make dude :P Candy is useless for blunt weapons.
It's about as dense as Styrofoam. Let that sink in.
It can be made so sharp that it will sink into stone under its own weight. Let that sink in.
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Who says it's even metal in the conventional sense of the term? Shit comes in strands, after all. Maybe it's some kind of polymer, with vastly differing properties depending on how you treat it (I.E. heating it causes the strands to fuse into a rigid mass, spinning it into thread yields something like carbon nanotube fiber, etc.) It would be interesting if in future installments adamantine had even more uses besides what it can do now, including potentially filling entirely new niches. Monofilament tripwires, anyone?
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Monofilament tripwires, anyone?
Adamantine Trip Wire
In Dwarf Fortress trip wire breaks you!
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One look at the RAWs and one shouldn't be surprised that picks are very, very good.
Pick strikes are very wide stabs (contact area of 100; short sword stabs are 50, dagger slashes are 1000). This is enough to have frequent amputations when hitting limbs, but will dig through armour or thick bones far more easily than slashes.
Picks put a lot of energy behind the blows - decent size (500) and an unusually high velocity multiplier (2.0) for an edged weapon. Pick strikes hit more than twice as hard as stabs of other dwarven weapons, so penetration remains good despite the larger contact area.
Picks have enough maximum penetration depth (4000) to get to the juicy bits of most things. Not quite in the league of spears, but twice as much as short sword stabs.
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Well, their good in-game, but isn't it the actual case in real life? In real life, a pick would do better against armor than swords or spears, and better than hammers against helmets and skulls. So maybe picks are meant to be like this, as opposed to being an overpowered, bugged weapon (like whips)? And they do have disadvantages, such as how swords are faster.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm quite unlearned on these things.
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Yes.
They aren't bugged. They are simulated somewhat crudely:
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Weapons of the same weight all handle the same. A weapon balanced towards the tip may benefit from a higher velocity multiplier, but it won't be harder to handle (chance to parry, recovery speed).
The game just simulates individual impacts, and individual hits of pick strikes should measure up well compared to real weapons. One thing I neglected to mention the last time: AFAIK the game also neglects to track how exhausting it is to fight with a given weapon (most serious weapons were surprisingly light, but 20-kg-monstrosities existed).
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Well, their good in-game, but isn't it the actual case in real life? In real life, a pick would do better against armor than swords or spears, and better than hammers against helmets and skulls. So maybe picks are meant to be like this, as opposed to being an overpowered, bugged weapon (like whips)? And they do have disadvantages, such as how swords are faster.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm quite unlearned on these things.
In-game, their hit performance is counted, but not their ability to parry, their mobility, centre of gravity, durability and range.
If all these things were calculated through statistics, then the pick wouldn't be a weapon of choice, but at least better than nothing.
There are picks suited for combat in real-life, though. They resolve many of the issues of mobility, centre of gravity and durability. It's the equivalent of a hand-axe, but with a spike, rather than a thin blade.
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Well, their good in-game, but isn't it the actual case in real life? In real life, a pick would do better against armor than swords or spears, and better than hammers against helmets and skulls. So maybe picks are meant to be like this, as opposed to being an overpowered, bugged weapon (like whips)? And they do have disadvantages, such as how swords are faster.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm quite unlearned on these things.
perhaps you need to learn a bit more about actual warfare prior to firearms. most of the things you see that depict it are flat wrong. the king of battle was the shield wall. call it the roman model, as rome conquered the "known world" with it. it does not take much training to learn how to use a pike and a shield. you can train green conscripts into passable soldiers in a month or two. even the vikings used the "shield wall" or phalanx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_wall).
in real life, a spear/pike is much better than a pick, mining or military. simply for the fact of its length. it's better than axes or swords, which is why eventually such "combo weapons" as the halberd were invented. essentially, a halberd is an axehead on the end of a spear. gives you better leverage and range, while retaining the armor piercing spike of the spear.
i'd also venture to say that a hammer is a better "anti-helmet" weapon than a spear or a pick. helmets tend to be round or conical. the point of a spear or pick will tend to slide off of the helmet, rather than pierce it. a hammer crushes, and because its impact is wider than a single point, it will be less likely to slide off of the armor with no effect.
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Well, there are two problems with picks - neither is necessarily a 'bug', but certainly a poor simulation, as someone put it.
-The game does not differentiate between a miner using a common mining pick, and a trained soldier using a pick-like weapon made for combat, such as a war hammer or halberd with a spike on the back. Yes such weapons did exist and were good at piercing plate, but this doesn't mean a tool made for mining rock should be as effective, and neither should a guy who has never done anything but mine rocks all his life be able to use such a weapon in combat as effectively as a trained warrior. Not that a legendary miner should be helpless, I sure wouldn't want to pick a fight with one (no pun intended), but should he really be more effective than a legendary axe/sword/speardwarf? I really don't think so.
-But let's make the simplifying assumption that a dwarven mining pick is actually designed for combat, and mining rock is good practice for picking goblin brains, then we still have problems with the 'war pick' as a weapon. Since studies comparing actual combat effectiveness of medieval melee weapons are next to nonexistant, I am reduced to quoting Wikipedia - hardly a reliable source, I know, but this all should be common sense:
The horseman's pick was often used as a means to penetrate thick plate armour or mail which the standard sword could not. However, a number of drawbacks limited the weapon's effectiveness. Its relative heaviness made it unwieldy and, thus, easily avoided. The injury caused by the weapon was also small and rarely immediately fatal. Additionally, if swung too hard, the weapon often became embedded in the victim or their armour, making retrieval difficult.
So the pick penetrates armor great, but it's slow to swing, easy to avoid, difficult to parry with, etc. Thing is the game doesn't model any of those things - all weapons from daggers to war hammers swing equally fast, all weapons have equal chance to hit and parry, the only difference is the impact they make - and in that respect the game is somewhat accurately modelling the pick as a better way to penetrate armor than a sword or axe, but without modelling all the weapon's limitations, the balance is thrown off.
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Well, their good in-game, but isn't it the actual case in real life? In real life, a pick would do better against armor than swords or spears, and better than hammers against helmets and skulls. So maybe picks are meant to be like this, as opposed to being an overpowered, bugged weapon (like whips)? And they do have disadvantages, such as how swords are faster.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm quite unlearned on these things.
perhaps you need to learn a bit more about actual warfare prior to firearms. most of the things you see that depict it are flat wrong. the king of battle was the shield wall. call it the roman model, as rome conquered the "known world" with it. it does not take much training to learn how to use a pike and a shield. you can train green conscripts into passable soldiers in a month or two. even the vikings used the "shield wall" or phalanx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_wall).
in real life, a spear/pike is much better than a pick, mining or military. simply for the fact of its length. it's better than axes or swords, which is why eventually such "combo weapons" as the halberd were invented. essentially, a halberd is an axehead on the end of a spear. gives you better leverage and range, while retaining the armor piercing spike of the spear.
i'd also venture to say that a hammer is a better "anti-helmet" weapon than a spear or a pick. helmets tend to be round or conical. the point of a spear or pick will tend to slide off of the helmet, rather than pierce it. a hammer crushes, and because its impact is wider than a single point, it will be less likely to slide off of the armor with no effect.
In real life, the best depends on what the enemy is wearing. If the enemy is wearing Renascence era musketproof plate, your pike is useless. In real life, go for an arblast. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arblast)
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So... if density is all that currently matters to blunt weapons.. wouldn't lead or GOLD be better than silver? Gold would certainly be classier...
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So... if density is all that currently matters to blunt weapons.. wouldn't lead or GOLD be better than silver? Gold would certainly be classier...
I thought that as well, sans the gold part. Gold dents way too easily to be used in any way other than looking nice. It deforms like putty so if you have a pure-gold rod and his something with it, the rod would bend more readily than conventional war-metals. Lead, however, sounds like a good possible replacement for heavy blunt weapons, but is so dense that all but the strongest hammermen could use it at peak effectiveness. If lead weapons were possible, I'd imagine larger entities such as trolls or (Armok forbid) Cyclops or Titans. Perhaps those who worship Titans would make a giant hammer for them as an offering (though how they'd manage to do that is nothing short of dwarven in its rediculousness).
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I thought that as well, sans the gold part. Gold dents way too easily to be used in any way other than looking nice. It deforms like putty so if you have a pure-gold rod and his something with it, the rod would bend more readily than conventional war-metals. Lead, however, sounds like a good possible replacement for heavy blunt weapons, but is so dense that all but the strongest hammermen could use it at peak effectiveness. If lead weapons were possible, I'd imagine larger entities such as trolls or (Armok forbid) Cyclops or Titans. Perhaps those who worship Titans would make a giant hammer for them as an offering (though how they'd manage to do that is nothing short of dwarven in its rediculousness).
I didn't think we had weapon degradation yet, though. Sure, in real life, a gold hammer would turn into a golden mushroom on a stick after a few hits, but DF is *clearly* not real life -- I could easily butcher my roommate's pet cat in real life. Except he'd tantrum and hit me with one of the various sharp things in his room. OK so DF isn't THAT farfetched... anyway. My point was that, I *think* you can make gold hammers in game (EDIT: Not without a mood or a mod..) and if density is currently the only criterion for "effectiveness," then a gold hammer should be awesome. And classy.
Also... it occurs to me that a candy mace might actually be super-useful for training while minimizing accidental fatalities.. if hammer effectiveness == hammer density, and even wood is SIGNIFICANTLY more dense than candy, then it stands to reason that a wooden mace would actually be more dangerous to train with.
After poking around in the RAWs..
Candy: [SOLID_DENSITY:200]
Iron: [SOLID_DENSITY:7850]
Steel: [SOLID_DENSITY:7850]
Copper: [SOLID_DENSITY:8930]
Silver: [SOLID_DENSITY:10490]
Lead: [SOLID_DENSITY:11340]
Gold: [SOLID_DENSITY:19320]
Platinum: [SOLID_DENSITY:21400]
Assuming that right now, this is the stat that makes hammers smashy, copper is actually about a 10% improvement over iron or steel, silver is about a 25% improvement, lead is only slightly better than silver, but gold is almost 2.5x times smashier than steel, and platinum is almost 3x better... Except you can't normally use gold, lead, or platinum for hammers. Silver's the best you can do without a mood. (oh.. by the way, as far as I can tell, wood is density 500 -- as is EGGSHELL. Meaning that a theoretical hammer made of fscking EGGSHELLS would still be 2.5x better than a hammer made of candy. O_o
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Where's Bronze?
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Where's Bronze?
in the RAWs. Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls. ;)
Bronze: [SOLID_DENSITY:8250] (and I believe Bismuth Bronze - the OTHER weaponizable metal - uses the same figure)
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Kill Skuls.
Ha! I have that accolade!
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The thing about copper is particularly notable; it's an extremely common metal, and it makes for better smashing than iron and steel (as of now, anyways). So if you have masses of copper, make masses of hammers or maces for your impromptu peasant militia, and save all the good stuff for armor and pokey-slicey weapons. In other words, have all your civilian dorfs carry a copper hammer for emergency debating of existence. Though that would also make your berserk dorfs much worse. Ehh.
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The thing about copper is particularly notable; it's an extremely common metal, and it makes for better smashing than iron and steel (as of now, anyways). So if you have masses of copper, make masses of hammers or maces for your impromptu peasant militia, and save all the good stuff for armor and pokey-slicey weapons. In other words, have all your civilian dorfs carry a copper hammer for emergency debating of existence. Though that would also make your berserk dorfs much worse. Ehh.
If all your dwarves are in a peasant militia, you can also fill your halls with danger room spikes(shields for everyone!). Suitably dwarfy to avoid the distastefulness of danger rooms, I'm sure. Spikes everywhere. Bedrooms. Dining halls. Workshops. Stairwells. Tantrum spirals become ridiculous, as legendary shield users simply block their way through.
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Who needs danger rooms when you can have an entire damn danger FORTRESS? Very effective for invaders too, since they'll start the day by getting poked in the lungs and kidneys.
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The instant someone suggested a danger fort I started formulating how I would go about accomplishing said task.
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I thought that as well, sans the gold part. Gold dents way too easily to be used in any way other than looking nice. It deforms like putty so if you have a pure-gold rod and his something with it, the rod would bend more readily than conventional war-metals. Lead, however, sounds like a good possible replacement for heavy blunt weapons, but is so dense that all but the strongest hammermen could use it at peak effectiveness. If lead weapons were possible, I'd imagine larger entities such as trolls or (Armok forbid) Cyclops or Titans. Perhaps those who worship Titans would make a giant hammer for them as an offering (though how they'd manage to do that is nothing short of dwarven in its rediculousness).
I think I resent that you think any over engineered thing that may cause death, tantrums, or fun is ridiculous. The word I think you meant was glorious. I get that we are talking of Titans this time, but still... Ridiculous dwarves?, please. Next you'll be telling me they'll walk outside during a siege to grab a sock. Wait.
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If I am understanding this,
It should be impossible to make funtional crossbow with 'candy' due to it being perfectly rigid, thus you couldent draw (bend) the bow (or what it is called) and provide energy for it to fire.
That or dwarfs have found another way to break the laws of physics.
(I am still new here)
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It shows by the incredulity you intone upon "dwarves have discovered a way to defy physics!"
Just wait until you realise how many dragons you can fit into a cage which you then freeze under water with everything living in stasis.
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Nah, candy can be made into clothes and used as a thread. I always imagined it to be like the elven materials in LoTR - it knows what you're trying to do with it.
Unless that would need it to be heavy.
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Another thought -- The Hammerer deals punishment by "X number of hammer strikes," right? So you could give him a candyhammer and essentially let him "punish" miscreants by hitting them with a boffer-stick.
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Another thought -- The Hammerer deals punishment by "X number of hammer strikes," right? So you could give him a candyhammer and essentially let him "punish" miscreants by hitting them with a boffer-stick.
This is exactly what people with a Hammerer end up doing. I just picture him standing over a dwarf with a picture of vengeance on his face hitting them as hard as they can with this beautifully sculpted hammer and the victim realizing they're actually getting a dwarven massage.
Granted, nobles are bugged right now which means no Hammerer at all, which is a good thing. It also means no Dungeon Master, which is a bad thing.
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The instant someone suggested a danger fort I started formulating how I would go about accomplishing said task.
I would get so tired of linking mechanisms.